Build to Keep challenge rules
These are the official rules for the Build to Keep challenge. We wrote them to actually be read. If anything here is unclear, email us and a person will explain it.
Last updated: July 27, 2026
The Build to Keep challenge is run by lilAgents. It starts with a free live workshop on July 28, 2026 and runs through a build challenge that closes on August 4, 2026. Entering is free.
No purchase necessary
No purchase is necessary to enter or to win, and entering costs nothing.
The challenge is designed on purpose to be completed entirely on free tiers. Every tool we suggest has a free plan that is enough to build a project and move it. You never need to pay for anything to enter, to be judged, or to win. If you already pay for tools you like, that is fine, it gives you no advantage in judging.
Who can enter
You must be 18 years of age or older at the time you enter.
The challenge is open worldwide, except where it is restricted or prohibited by law. If entering would break the law where you live, you are not eligible.
These people are not eligible to enter or win:
- Employees and contractors of lilAgents.
- Employees and contractors of the sponsors, Netlify and OpenRouter.
- The guest judges.
- The immediate family of anyone above, and anyone living in the same household as them. Immediate family means parents, children, siblings, and a spouse or partner.
Entry period and deadlines
Every time on this page is given in both Pacific Time and Eastern Time so there is no ambiguity.
- Live workshop and challenge kickoff: July 28, 2026 at 10:00am PT, which is 1:00pm ET.
- Submission deadline: August 4, 2026 at 10:00am PT, which is 1:00pm ET.
Entries received after the submission deadline will not be judged. The clock on our submission server is the official timekeeper, so do not leave it to the final minute.
How to enter
- Build a project. It can be whatever you want it to be.
- Move it across at least two tools. Start it in one platform and continue it in another. For example, start in Lovable and continue in Cursor, or start in Google Antigravity and continue in Netlify Agent Runners. The combination is up to you. The point is to prove the project is genuinely yours and can leave the place it was born in.
- Submit it through this portal before the deadline. You will be asked for your live URL, a one line description, the platform you started on, the platform you moved to, and a short note on how you moved it. A public repository link is optional.
One entry per person. If you submit again with the same account, it updates your existing entry rather than creating a second one, so you can keep improving your project right up until the deadline. At the deadline everything locks: no new entries, no more edits, so the judges score the same version you finished with.
Your submission has to be your own work, and you need to hold the rights to everything in it.
How entries are judged
Entries are scored out of 10 on the Portability Scorecard below. Every line is a plain yes or no a judge can check in about a minute, so you can score your own entry before you submit it and know exactly where you stand.
Three things worth knowing before you build, because they change what to aim for.
- You do not need to own a domain. The custom domain line scores whether your host would allow one on its free tier, not whether you bought one. A
.netlify.appor.pages.devURL you never pointed a domain at still scores the full 2. - Hosting with a sponsor earns no extra credit. Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, Vercel, or your own server all score identically, because that line scores the host's policy and not its name.
- Polish breaks ties, it never wins. A plain page you fully own beats a beautiful app locked inside a vendor. Scope is not scored either, so a one page site can score a perfect 10.
A panel of guest judges from the builder community applies this scorecard to the entries and selects the grand prize winner. If two entries tie at the top, the judges decide between them on polish and creativity. The judges' decisions are final.
We will notify the winner by email, at the address attached to their submission, within 3 business days of judging finishing. The winner then has 5 days from the date that email is sent to reply and claim the prize. If we do not hear back within that window, or the email bounces, we may pick an alternate winner.
Prizes
Grand prize: a free ERA Audit from lilAgents, approximate retail value 1,000 US dollars, plus Netlify credits. One grand prize will be awarded, with a total approximate retail value of 1,100 US dollars.
An ERA Audit is an independent review of your codebase: we read it, write up what we find, and hand you an honest assessment with an action plan. Worth being plain about this, because it is the point of the thing: the report is honest, so it can come back saying the software is not ready. You get a timestamped report either way, and it is yours.
Live giveaways: during the live workshop on July 28, 2026 we are giving away OpenRouter credits and additional Netlify credits, with a combined approximate retail value of 500 US dollars. These are awarded during the event itself.
Prizes cannot be exchanged for cash and cannot be transferred to someone else. If a prize becomes unavailable, we may substitute one of equal or greater value.
Any taxes on a prize are the winner's responsibility. Depending on where you live and what the prize is worth, you may need to report it, and we may need to collect tax information from you before we can send it.
The email drawing is optional
When you submit, you can choose to join the lilAgents email list. That checkbox is optional. Here is exactly what it does and does not do.
- Opting in enters you in a separate drawing for sponsor credits from Netlify and OpenRouter.
- Opting in is not required to enter the build challenge.
- Opting in has no effect on judging whatsoever.
- Opting in is not required to win the grand prize.
- You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of any email we send. Unsubscribing later does not pull you out of a drawing you already entered.
If you leave that box unchecked, your entry still counts in full for everything else, including the grand prize. The only thing you miss is that one drawing.
Drawing winners are selected at random from everyone who opted in during the entry period, and are notified by email on the same timing described above.
You own what you build
You keep full ownership of your project. All of it. This event exists to argue against lock in, so we are not about to contradict that in our own rules.
To be specific:
- You keep every bit of ownership in your work: your code, your design, your intellectual property, your product.
- We claim no ownership of any of it. Entering does not transfer or assign your intellectual property to us.
- The only permission you give us is a limited, non exclusive, royalty free license to display your submission, meaning its name, description, links, screenshots, and the platform details you provided, in the public gallery on this site and in promotion of Build to Keep.
- That permission covers showing and talking about your entry. It does not cover using your code, selling your work, or building anything on top of your product.
- You can ask us to take your entry out of the gallery at any time, by email, and we will.
We are not asking for rights to your work. A rules page that quietly took your intellectual property would be exactly the kind of thing this challenge is about.
Privacy
What we collect when you enter:
- Your name or handle.
- Your email address.
- The details you give us about your project, including your live URL, an optional repository URL, your description, and the platforms you used.
How we use it: to run and judge the challenge, to show your entry in the public gallery, and to contact you if you win. If you opt in to the email list, we also use your email address to send you the lilAgents newsletter and to run the sponsor credit drawing.
What is public: the project details you submit for the gallery, including your handle, project name, description, links, and platform details. Your email address is never shown publicly.
We do not sell your personal information.
For the full picture of how lilAgents handles data, read the lilAgents privacy policy.
Sponsors and platforms
Build to Keep is run by lilAgents. Netlify and OpenRouter are sponsors of this event and are providing prizes.
This challenge is not sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with any of the other AI building platforms named on this site as examples, including Lovable, Cursor, and Google Antigravity. We name those tools only to describe the kind of work the challenge involves. All trademarks and product names belong to their respective owners.
Changes, disqualification, and governing law
We may update these rules, adjust the schedule, or cancel the challenge if we have to, for example if something breaks, if circumstances change, or if the law requires it. If we make a meaningful change we will post it on this page, update the date at the top, and announce it in the event channels.
We may disqualify an entry that breaks these rules, is not the entrant's own work, infringes someone else's rights, or tries to interfere with the challenge or with other entrants.
These rules are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any dispute connected to this challenge will be handled in the state or federal courts located in Texas.
If any part of these rules turns out to be unenforceable, the rest of them still apply.
Questions
Email support@lilagents.com with any question about these rules, your entry, the drawing, or a prize. That includes asking us to remove your entry from the gallery. A person will answer you.